Annuals.

The trick with annuals is to plan ahead. In the fall, even though the marigolds look so stunning with the pumpkins and mums, if I don’t get the pansies into their warm little beds soon enough, they won’t have time to fill out before the weather turns too cold. I’ll have puny little pansies skimpily dotting the barren winter yard. In the spring, while these same pansies are flourishing in complimentary cheer amidst flowering shrubs and trees, it’s essential to end their season all too soon in order for the subsequent marigolds and petunias to get a good foothold before the berating heat of the southern summer.

Today was the big switch out and cleanup day. I cleaned out the last big batch of summer weeds along with the marigolds and basil. I had procrastinated a bit this year, particularly in the tomatoes.

After a hot summer of drought, we finally saw a boom in tomatoes in late August. Most of these are still green and I wanted to leave them on the vine as long as possible. Last week, when my Sasanqua began blooming, I realized the last days of summer were truly gone, and I’d have to make use of my tomatoes in their green state. (time to pull out the green tomato and lemon marmalade recipe.)

So I packed away the tomato cages and estimated about 6 months before I see them again. It’s a bit of a sad time saying goodbye to another season in the garden. However, after some more pruning and the introduction of a new batch of pansies, it’s also very satisfying to step back and see the cleaned up beds and imagine how next year will be even more beautiful.

I also hold out hope that next year’s tomato crop will be more successful than the last! Every year it’s the same… I say that smiling, of course. In a complicated world I love the simplicity of the garden, and even if weather patterns are completely whackadoo – as they were this year – there’s a comfort in the predictability of it.

My son, of course, is being trained in this tradition. I took this photo a few weeks ago, as I watched father and son sort the collection of 45s that resides in the wicked cool vintage record box from my husband’s childhood in the 1960s. It’s a beautiful site to see this happy transfer of knowledge, and hopefully, passion!

*weak segue here*

…another area of learning I love to share…

Okay – so time for some confession. I’m here to pass along a recipe that many people asked me to share. However, since shrimp photograph rather poorly (I’m sparing you one old photo I have of a delightful jadeite bowl filled with slimy, dull-grey-toned, raw, Georgia shrimp), I was desperate to come up with a photo lead-in.

So, back to business.

I love to cook and I really love when I throw a few ingredients together and something wonderful results! and I really, really love when people ask me to share the recipe!

Sunday evening, we had a gathering planned at our church and I needed to bring an appetizer. I had some shrimp on-hand. That may sound odd. A low country girl–it’s not at all unusual for me to have some spare shrimp in the fridge or freezer! I did not, however, have the usual cream cheese to convert this into a typical dip.

I found a simple recipe for Shrimp butter in a cookbook from home, but I thought a spicy version might be good. Apparently I hit on an idea worthy of sharing!Just one question – has anyone else from the low country or even the south ever heard of shrimp butter before? It’s rumored to be an old southern thing, but I can’t find anyone who has ever encountered it before!

Spicy Shrimp Butter:
1 pound shrimp – peeled, deveined, boiled and finely chopped
1 stick butter – softened
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
half Vidalia Onion – finely diced
2-3 cloves garlic – finely diced
2-3 tablespoons red bell pepper – finely diced
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon white pepper
Tabasco (or other hot sauce)
cayenne pepper

Mix all the ingredients and continue adding Tabasco and Cayenne to your taste.  Serve with crackers. Turn on some Buckwheat Zydeco (yes – John just fed me that answer – I’m just a student), Dr. John, or BB King and enjoy!

I love the colors of this guy – the french country triumvirate – red, blue, and golden yellow. He would be completely camouflaged in my living room!

How could anything so brilliant ever blend in?

It’s been along day, and I’m drained. Let’s just let that one sink in for a bit.

Fortunately no big mistakes come to mind, and I can think of one choice we made that I have to claim as a triumph…we hit this one out of the park.

Shortly after nap-times ended, the adults in this household decided we weren’t ready to give up such a good thing. We persevered through a little bit of resistance in the very beginning, but to this day, each afternoon my six-year old fairly cheerfully heads off to his room (usually with a feline friend) and, following a story, remains there for the next hour of “quiet time.” On Sundays, we get a little longer.

This past Sunday I got a quick nap in and then undertook a new challenge I had been wanting to conquer for some time. I made my first batch of the french peasant summer vegetable dish, ratatouille, following the guidance of my favorite southern chef, Frank Stitt.

I have to tell you, beyond the name being cool, I was a little skeptical. Stewed vegetables all mixed up and finished off with some tomato – that didn’t really knock my socks off. Contrary to all I imagined, something magic happened.

That magic is most assuredly in the method…well and lots of olive oil and basil.

To retain it’s beautiful color and best texture, each vegetable is sauteed separately for about 10 minutes… add oil… repeat. I have multiple skillets, but chose to use just one favorite, 12-inch, fire-engine red enameled pan.This allowed me to prep the next vegetable in a quarter-inch dice while it’s predecessor aromatically came to life in the pan.

Slow, repetitive, tedious… self-imposed quiet time for this big kid.

Sometimes it’s so nice in this busy, rapid-fire world to be forced into some quiet time. (I’ve found the same blessed escape in needlework for years.) Quick sidebar – my friend Donna and I have commiserated that the enforced downtime of sitting with a head full of foils under a dryer on the other hand is enough to drive a girl crazy – itching to get going!

So the final ratatouille judging came with a little help from some other favored ingredients, and it was superb.

In his cookbook, The Southern Table, Frank offers a brilliant and delicious partnership of Sea Bass in Fig Leaves with Ratatouille and Herb Aioli. Oh my. I went the distance – including committing petty theft as I desperately snatched two large fig leaves from a neighbor’s yard (I did ring the doorbell and try to ask first – selfishly because I was rather hoping they would tell me they hated figs and I could take as many as my heart desired, but neither fig friend or foe answered the door).

Delicious! and worth every moment of focused preparation.

I remain committed to this decision – quiet time was a very good call!

I hate when I give over to crabiness. It’s just a stupid way to walk around – kind of like when the 6th grade gym teacher made you scurry crab-style on all fours across that lacquered gymnasium floor. What’s that about? I really can’t see a vital skill developing here!

You can even hear it, can’t you?! Snap-snap!

Things didn’t go according to my fabulous plan today, and instead of being flexible and just going with it, I’d rather furrow my brow and ruin what’s left of my afternoon. Oh wait, no I really wouldn’t. But it’s so hard to let go of crabbiness sometimes – just want to wallow in some mud for a while, teeth clenched.

I used to be an overly laid back, type B, procrastinating loaf. I was fun! …unless I was your lab partner.

Somewhere along the way to adulthood, I unwittingly decided to become a mature adult of fantastic Type A proportions. I’m… a planner. Real bad.

So, I like to get way ahead of things, visualize, make really swell lists and spreadsheets, plan out every detail I can and… ofter get very disappointed when thing don’t go the way I had expected. It’s not a tragedy, but it was not listed like this in my calendar. Okay – I must stop the illustration now, because my brow is furrowing again.

I did manage to escape myself recently. My church asked the small groups to plan (whoa, Nellie) and execute (they probably used a less uptight word like “do” but we uptight planners like to execute!) a random act of kindness in our community last weekend.

After prayer and what I’m sure was divine inspiration, I decided to help someone with a flat tire pay for a new one. We searched around town looking for anyone driving on their spare… no luck. I stalked the tire shops… no luck. I finally found a semi-flat tire in a Big10 parking lot and dashed into the lobby only to be disappointed to discover they could repair it for free. Brow furrowed.

Then I got smacked in the head by the mighty hand of the Holy Spirit, which is about what it takes to stop an attack of crabbies. Perhaps, maybe I was being a little too rigid in my planning of random acts. The free-tire-repair customer was getting an oil change after all, just go with it!!

I threw my plan right out the window and just followed where I was led the rest of the afternoon. It was lots of fun, probably as much for the “letting go” part as the kick from surprising someone with a little help.

Thanks for listening to my rant. I feel much better now and will stop scurrying around on all fours immediately.

Having faced the prospect at one time of having to sell our home to follow a job, we are extremely grateful not to have to go through that at this time. Nonetheless, it’s painful to continue to hear of devaluation and more homes fall into disrepair around us.

A few days later, I charged through my front door ready to skin the man I spotted walking carelessly through one of my perennial beds – he literally stepped on my recently transplanted Vibernum! He introduced himself as the owner of the house and told me his plan to clean it up and put it on the market as he had another home in our neighborhood – currently under contract for a very reasonable price.”You’re gonna be really pleased with it!”

Well, slap my mama. That was not what I expected to hear.

The scenario in my cynical brain had shaped into something more like, “I’m the representative of the eleven hobos who pooled their nickels and sheet metal collection together to purchase this house and will now be converting it into a temporary shelter for homeless pit bulls with a special local distilling business run out of the basement.”

Wow. It’s so easy to let the negativity – sometimes justly-deserved – of this economy hang a dark and permanent cloud all around us.

For nearly two weeks, a work crew has been hard at work on a beautiful transformation. They gutted the inside of the house and scrubbed the exterior. New decks, gutters, paint, stairs, and trim – the house is really starting to return to life.

The most dramatic change began yesterday. A crew has been removing trees non-stop, and it’s absolutely amazing.

I don’t know about you, but we tend to get attached to our trees, and even when we know it would be nice to remove a few, we get kind of sentimental and at least non-committal in finding a date to call the tree man. Yes, they’ve grown close to the house. Yes, they leave a ton of garbage in the yard. Yes, I realize that azalea stopped blooming three years back because it’s gotten a little too shady in that spot.

I saw which trees they had marked to remove and realized it wouldn’t impact my yard much because they aren’t in the path of the sun in the summer. But when I walked out this morning, I marveled at how much reflected light was now pouring in from the beautiful open lot next door!

I had no idea our yard and the whole cul-du-sac had gotten so dark! But, thanks to some really radical pruning and excavating – our sunshine has returned.

Outside of the house are a number of encouraged residents, namely about six species of birds, the occasional bunny (but, of course), and an aging arthritic black Labrador named Boss.

We’ve had some surprise visitors through the years – a wayward tortoise and a wild turkey who strolled up and down our driveway as though he were preparing to knock on the door and offer us the next best thing in whatever service wild turkeys might offer.

Then there are the discouraged  residents. Let me say I’m torn about deer. I hate them when they eat portions of my garden – did you have to go after my Camellia?? – plus, they carry Lyme disease. But, when you look down through acres of forest on a grey winter day and see a family of five including a young Bambi or two out for a stroll – it’s captivating and, well, lovely. That’s where the grey area ends. Snakes are disgusting, and I’m terrified when I find one, and they are most assuredly discouraged (promise! I would never kill the noble Indigo snake, but I’m pretty sure they don’t live in my back yard).

I love my garden and I suppose this is an assumed risk, but honestly in 11 years of cultivation I have only encountered benign little grey worm snakes. Don’t get me wrong, each time my shovel arose from the dirt wriggling silver, I had a small heart attack, but I realized quickly that I wasn’t in danger.

This morning, armed with my poultry shears, I headed out to gather a few new blossoms for the vase in my living room. I bent down over my rudbeckia, and just before extending my arm, noticed the colorful snake lounging on one of the leaves. Repeat – small heart attack. And then I did what any sane person does… I ran to get the camera.

No matter how I tried to get focused on his demon eyes, I couldn’t tell if they were round pupils or slanted. Could his head be described as spade shaped. I just wasn’t sure. I WAS SURE that when the workman from the house next door came over and snatched this guy right off the leaf, I felt much better!

Once downloaded and zoomed, I was fairly confident he had round pupils. This made me feel even better, lest I find his brother hangin out on a tomato tomorrow. After Googling pictures of snakes all afternoon, my money’s now on Midland Water Snake.

Not sure why I assumed he’s a he. Probably because he doesn’t have the red bow that distinguishes the sexes.

He was about 2 and 1/2 inches long, way too small to be repurposed into a handbag or boots – you now you were thinking about it.

Isn’t he cool?

I began working a reduced schedule today and, following lunch, spent the afternoon in the company of my favorite little fella! I kicked off my return to being the mommie by planning a nutritious lunch at the local movie theater… extra butter. We did a lot of laughing together at Mr. Popper and his penguins. Then we just ran around – literally. We ran to the bathroom and back, we ran around the lobby, we ran through the parking lot. I don’t care if this was poor behavior for a public venue (a Monday matinee doesn’t have enough attendance to really offend anyone anyway) – I just had a great time with my buddy.

Another activity I’ve truly missed out on for over a year is grocery shopping, which is always a blast with my partner in fun!

Oh how I’ve missed all this, and I’m looking forward to many more afternoons together!

Around late May in my part of the world we get really excited about heading to the beach or out to a park and soaking in the sunshine and blue skies and blossoms. Mere days or weeks later we are under attack. Complaining of the heat is quick to set in as a staple of summer conversation. It does have a certain commonality so as to impart some since of kinship, but really, it’s just constant whining from May16th until the second week of October.

In a concerted effort to not “wish my life away,” I decided one summer I must find ways to love each of the hot days of July and August… okay, maybe just better appreciate.

Looking forward to summer vegetables is an easy one. Cucumbers, eggplant, zucchini and really awesome tomatoes. Desire for fruits like blueberries, peaches, plums, Oh-my-favorite figs, and finally apples to bridge the gap, help the calendar pages sweep by!

Seashells from my coastal home are all over the house and instantly bring to mind the breezy best of summer!

Finally, I can literally change my perspective by lying in the grass and looking up at a brilliant cool, blue sky. A pretty quilt on freshly mowed grass is just heaven.

I love this picture because of the sky and the spires of pink turk’s cap lilies towering over me in technicolor. It sneaks me away to magical scene where I might find myself giggling with Br’er Rabbit in his laughin place. Maybe when we get a little lower to the ground we naturally find a childlike humor and appreciation for the world around us…. or maybe we’re just happier when we’re looking up.